If It's With You

014- Turning down a date

Muna

“Mom, trust me I’m not lonely, I have friends now,” I said, trying to convince my mom who had concluded I was lonely, after watching my recently uploaded Vlog.

She was worried about me and I appreciated that, but it had been a little over two months since I moved here. I wasn’t a newbie anymore.

After the night at my house, Nicklaus had left after his phone call. Then, I got a text from him saying he would be out of town for a few days, but a few days turned into weeks and he had been busy with work, moving in and out of New York. His job was very demanding, but our friendship was flourishing.

“I’m only judging from what I saw in those videos you keep posting but if you say so, honey.”

I wondered what she saw. I had been so busy, filming lots and lots of videos. There were a lot of sponsorship deals, which got me working days and nights. I was already far into settling down so my YouTube family wanted to see a lot of the city. Also, most of my mornings were spent in Julia’s coffee shop just like now.

“Yeah… Later, Mom.” I said, and standing in front of the counter, I waited for Julia to hand me my coffee.

“Bye, baby.” She said, and the call ended.

I stared down at the text I was reading before my Mom’s call came in, It was a text I sent to Nicklaus on Instagram a few days ago. We had been texting each other, and even though Nicklaus was almost always busy, he always had some spare time for us. Being friends with him was great, but it had been three days now since I sent my last text and hadn’t gotten a reply.

“Here babe,” Julia called, snapping my attention back to her, and the corners of my lips turned up in a smile.

“Did you hear from Nicklaus?” I asked as she handed me my coffee. I threw a smile at Katie, who had been busy since I walked in and was just noticing my presence.

“Hi,” I said

“Good morning, Muna.” Katie returned.

Many people were waiting in line, but standing here for an extra few seconds wouldn’t kill the people behind me.

“Nah, I haven’t really had time.” Julia shot me a smile. “Hope you’re good?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I muttered before walking to my favourite spot, which was the table close to the glass wall.

I went back to scrolling through the comments, under my most recent Instagram photo, when I noticed a heart reaction from Nicklaus just ten minutes ago. I took a sip from my coffee and placed it back on the table, but a light screech filled my ears, causing me to tear my gaze from my phone. When I looked up, it was Tim, who was now seated across from me.

Somehow, Tim had on many occasions managed to appear wherever I was, since the day I bought plants from him. Especially here at Julia’s.

The first few times it happened, it was super weird to me, but Tim was a nice dude, always had a smile on his face, and he was also polite and friendly. Sometimes he stared at me in admiration, but then, I had caught him a few times staring at me like he was seeing beyond the clothes I had on. At first, I felt weird but I decided not to read any meaning into it. Men would sometimes be men.

“Hello, Muna.” He grinned as he always did, his freckles disappearing into the lines formed on his face. “You look beautiful this morning, as always.” He blinked.

I was clad in a pair of denim shorts and a white sleeveless top. Dropping my phone on the table, I raised the rim of the coffee cup to my mouth. “Thank you,” I threw him a half-smile before taking another sip.